Wednesday, September 14, 2011

“Chinna chinna aasai”- I had liked this song from the tamil movie Roza which was a hit, had written down what I thought was the lyrics and had tried to sing the song when there were no one within hearing distance, without knowing what exactly it meant. But I had a vague idea what was being conveyed.

It was about small or simple pleasures in life.

I am lucky to be able to enjoy a few simple pleasures and one of them is the sight and smell of flowers that grow around my house.

The Parijata (night Jasmine)plant, which my wife brought from Bangalore and planted, is now a small tree and has reached our balcony.

We have managed to coax the jasmine creeper to climb up and I intend coaxing it further and making it climb on to the terrace. The creeper is in the process of crossing the balcony and these days there is always a flower or two near the balcony.

Late evenings when the Parijata blooms, the balcony is flooded with the fragrance but the solitary Jasmine works hard to make its presence felt too.

I love to stand there and enjoy the sight of these flowers and the combined fragrance.

I am not overtly religious but I do carry on the tradition of lighting a lamp and placing a few flowers on the idols and photographs of deities that we have with us. Till we shifted to this house our gods had to manage with flowers grown by the roadside or those with in arms distance from the road in my neighbour’s garden. I had no intentions of depriving the owners of their rightful share and was content with what was within my reach and so were our gods. I never resorted to using a stick or a wire hook to claim what was morally not mine. But that is another story. After we shifted here we have planted plenty of flowering plants and I get many varieties of flowers in good quantities.

I love the sight of flowers collected in the mornings for the purpose and it feels good to see the gods adorned with those flowers.

The nature lover likes the flower smiling on the plantThe young man loves the flower in his wife’s hairThe devout cherishes the flower adorning the lordBut the flowers only mean a few coins for the lady who sells them.

I have been able to experience and enjoy the first and the third.

As far the second, when I was a young man, I neither had flowers growing nor the sense to buy and put them in my wife’s hair and enjoy the sight. (and I keep hearing about that lapse even after twenty five years.) Now we have lots of flowers growing but I am not young and my wife does not have enough hair!

Saturday, September 3, 2011

I managed to use the ‘motion picture’ facility in our camera for the first time and succeeded in getting not just a blur but a picture in which one can differentiate between the bird and the Banana. The base of the fridge was not intended to be shot but entered the clip on its own will. This is a trial to see if I can attach the video to the post. Following is the caption, bit lengthy.

Sometime back I had written in this blog about the bird (red vented bulbul) which visited our kitchen everyday for its share of banana fruits. It used to perch on the window of the kitchen every morning and afternoon, chirping incessantly to inform us that it was time for its meal and we better move out. If we remained there, it used to fly away and return after sometime with louder chirping demanding to know what business we still had there. But it never came in when one of us were there.

All of a sudden it stopped coming and our bananas were not touched even though they were hanging in the same place and were of the same quality. The bird was being seen around the house but it never flew in for the meal. I thought that it was either fed up with the same fare every day or that it was a different bird not aware of the availability of an easy meal.

Now, after about two years, I noticed one of the fruits in the bunch partly eaten and the familiar beak marks. Then I saw the birds, two of them now, boldly flying in and out of our kitchen whenever they desired a snack, ignoring our presence. I do not know if they are a different bolder pair who heard about the bananas through the birdie grapevine or the same old Bulbul back with a bolder companion after deciding that same fare everyday is better than no fare at all.

Since they attack many fruits, I am forced to leave only one fruit hanging and take out the others. One of them flew away when I went near with the camera and the other remained to get the last beakful and flew out only after I went even closer.

Adding this after seeing the video clip on the post : Sorry for the bad video. I was expecting it to be better. Just as i saw it before uploading. It seems to have gone bad during transport. I have no idea how to make it better. Please bear.